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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chai».E.64tepyright No.. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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BRYAN THE BRAVE 







"Yoti shall not press down upon the brow of labor 
this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind 
on a cross of gold/' 



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Bpyan the Bpave, 



THE LIGHT Or SILVER rPLLDO/W. 



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XXX TO XXX 

MKS. WILLIAAA JENNINGS WYXH. 

XXX 

Permit the author to dedicate to the future hidy of the White 
House the Silver Ship of State as illuminated by that harbinger 
of personal liberty, the invincible American Tribune — Bryan the 
Brave — who will lead the countless hosts of white slaves from 
the fathomless abyss of money despotism to the mountain heights 
of financial independence. If the lyric muse awakens a responsive 
chord in your noble consort's great, patriotic heart to direct the 
redeemed State Ship, as she glides on the waves of popular 
applause, scattering the blessings of wealth and ha])iMness to all 
alike, forever free, then may she ride at anchor in the haven of 
universal prosperity, in the plentitudc of the people's power and 
the plaudits of freemen in the paradise of patriotism. 

Within the curtained cloister of the patriot's altar, there 
ascends from the rhapsodist's soul, the holiest incense of mipas- 
sioned prayer, invoking the celestial muse to move the world, 
unseen of the world, witli tlie electric currents of patriotism on 
waves of thought to every shore girdling the globe witli its 
heaven-born influence, to be welcomed l)y all nations in all climes, 
and hailed by angels with thrills of joy. 

In the star-capped tower of the poet's imagination the celes- 
tial nnises ring the silver bells ^»f Libertv, whose clnud-born 



clarion chimes reverberate on waves of joy from the loftiest 
mountain peaks to the nethermost glens, from verdant vales to 
heathery hillsides, where pinching- poverty pines in penance, 
lightening every heart with flashing flames of a brighter hope, 
a surer, firmer trust in the emancipation of tax-chained labor, and 
the dawn of personal freedom, in Ihc pursuit of man's immortal 
destiny and eternal happiness. 

It is the inspired function and bounden duty of the satirist 
to riddle the mask covering the shams and ignorant pretensions of 
an illiterate, unprincipled, prison-doomed, plutonion-bound pluto- 
cracy. The foundation walls of our glorious republic are com- 
posed of incorruptible virtue, and the grand superstructure is a 
mosaic of noble patriotic deeds and vicarious sacrifices. Her real 
wealth is not in costly castles and radiant robes, but rather the 
shining scholarship of her savans, the zeal of her patriots and 
the unclouded morality and pure devotion of her free people. 
Under propitious stars the republic may realize the brightest ideal 
of our golden dreams. 

Thrice blessed, felicitous majesty of the heavenly-reigning 
angel-soul with Bryan the Brave, by the self-sustaining mighti- 
ness of conscience and the spiritual power of the prophetess, guide 
the republic of worshipping souls, rich in the jewels of celestial 
graces adorning spotless, immortal spirits, on pearly pinions wing- 
ing tlicm to Heaven's gates. 

Very respectfully, the author. 

A WHITE SLAVE. 

Fourth of July, '96. 

I20th vcar of Slaverv to British Gold. 



Bryan the ^qavl 

a: 

LIGHT or 
SILVER FREEDOM. 



I. 



When sceptred Liberty rose in majesty, 

She hired a genius with the diadem of victory. 

His soul, born in the sheen of Heaven's smiles, 

Was predestinated, for the man of destiny, free from guile. 

Indomitable spirit, restless, pure, divine, 

Guided a brain with purpose noble and sublime. 

The silver-proof patriot typified his grand career, 

Divinative seer, his heart spurned all fear. 

II. 

The thoroughbred warrior for justice and right; 
A fearless advocate for truth against might ; 
For the Plebeian right versus the patrician wrong; 
Lone, brave, irresistible, opposes the illegal throng. 
Ever 'gainst crooked taxation with its crucial iUs, 
In hamlet, state, nation, or nefarious gold bond bills. 
Life-long champion of constitutional Lilierty. 
He battled long against a monied oligarchy. 



III. 



This invincible harbinger of Jeffersonian faith 

Caused the flood that stranded Hill's gold fiends ni a strait. 

Primus inter pares, transcendent matchless seer, 

Insures the silver prize to those in patriot's spheres. 

For pure government, the standard-bearer in the van, 

Bryan's genius held in trust at his country's command. 

His dazzling silver star ascends to lofty station, 

To direct inspired moves on the chess-board of the nation. 

IV. 

Knows by intuition all just and lawful precedents 
To make silver laws and undo gold presidents. 
William the Conqueror's prescience of the origin of things 
Foresees the insidious snares of gold gamblers' rings. 
The young giant has so graced his congressional chair 
As to be vested with the title to Washington's heir. 
Despite the witchery wiles of the gold fiends' leaven 
Bryan the Brave rules the White House in Ninety-Seven. 

V. 

Hear the welkin ring with the weird wailings in labors' bands, 
Fscaping from the ruins strewn by the Gold Octopus hands. 
Tlie money martyrs shed tlieir blood in lifeless libations. 
To appease merciless Mammon in wild incantations, 
'Mid the griefTtil groans of the sacrificed sons of toil, 
Bound by the starving spoliator with monopoly's coils, 
Bled and devoured by that arch-fiend of evil omen, 
The deadly demon, the vile jtlutocrat's gold protection! 



VI. 

See piteous plebeians, tramping troublous tearful throngs, 
Eyes bleared with pains welling up from oppression's thongs ! 
In the first car, the weeping Goddess of Silver Freedom, 
Shrouded in the blackest robes befitting the yawning tomb, 
With frenzied face, tear-veiled eyes, looking to high Heaven, 
Praying God to stay the wrecks of the Gold Octopus leaven, 
To sever the shackles from the limbs of the starved slaves. 
Tax-chained, thorn-crowned, gobbled by gold-gambling knaves 



VIL 

In the second car the Heaven-born Revolution stands. 
Incarnation of Patriotism, the dazzling star, Bryan, 
In the panoply of Justice, silver shield of eternal Right, 
The breastplate of Faith, shining helmet of celestial Light, 
With Freedom's starry baldric girt, a sword whose bristling steel 
Is pointed by souls goaded by Tyranny's iron heel, 
Bearing high aloft the twinkling stars of the people's reign. 
Thunderbolt Tribune, electrifying with heroic aims ! 

VIII. 

Fired by dauntless courage and divinative wall to dare, 
Borne by immortal Hope and the patriot's burning prayer. 
The avenging Nemesis will lead the militant hosts, 
The countless throng of tax-chained plebeians, and storm 
The death-fraught barons within their sin-dyed gold-brick moats. 
Intrenched in robber-castles and the stolen spoils borne 
By godless knaves, into black and merited perdition, 
Goaded by the wild furies' thongs to swift retribution ! ! 



IX. 

The serried shots of avenging slaves blight the gold ring souls, 
Demons' flights wing wrath's victims to remorse's shoreless goal! 
Salem's seer, throned in the zenith of the people's reign, 
Will be spirited from his shrine at the Platte's sacred fane. 
Margined by waters refulgent with his deathless fame. 
Whose radiant face mirrors the sheen of his spotless name. 
Borne by blithesome freemen, 'mid the echoes of joy's alarms, 
With gladsome hearts and winsome glees, in patriot's arms, 



X. 



Along a roseate roadway strewn with Heaven-blown flowers. 
To the Nation's White House, where with eagle-eyed powers. 
He will ever guard with sleepless vigilance the sacred claims 
Of the poorest tax-payer thralled in Tyranny's chains! 
The public verdict is read in burning letters of fire. 
Woe to the vile recreants meriting the people's ire. 
The cabinet that spawned the syndicate's gold tax 
Will be beheaded by the enraged people's battle axe. 

XL 

The meet retributive power of the Almighty's wrath 
Will paralyze perjured traitors in a brimstone bath! 
The merciless gold fiends' robber-hatching company, 
Limited in nothing, but justice and honesty, 
Incubates millionaires with wonderful celerity, 
Makes robbers of partisans with graceless impunity! 
The gold fiends' incubator hatches birds of hydra hues, 
High-blown Hanna Uinis (on his gas to suit his vicious views. 



XII. 

The gold ring's nest hatches millionaire birds in fine feathers. 
The gold ring's prison cast out the poor fowl for all weathers. 
The peacock millionaires are arrayed in diamond dyes. 
The pauper chicks are eaten alive l)y gold-bug flies. 
The bad baron's Supreme Sitting is ever ill at ease, 
Unless the incubator waves the bloody shirt to the breeze. 
The Upas of Bribery spreads to the horizon's verge, 
Blasts the Fane of Justice, grave-digger at Liberty's dirge. 

XIII. 

Briarian bribe-mongers, rich by vile indirection, 
Partisan plunderers wear the scorn of the nation ! 
It is the Gold Octopus, insatiate fiend of wicked times, 
Ofif with its head, source of endless unwhispered crimes! 
Hungry hirelings, bought by higgling Hanna on auction blocks, 
Perjured knaves sold and sheared, shambling sheep in flocks! 
The bribers' slaves, with their master's dog-collar round them girt, 
Are tied to their kennels of vice, scorned by shackled serfs! 

XIV. 

The Nation's Forum, haunted by the sad shades of Liberty, 

Conjures up its stars to rid it of its base iniquity. 

The winged plague of Bribery strikes the Senate's walls. 

The charnel house of partisans blackens the nation's halls: 

Dead to the qualms of conscience, dead to pangs of burning 

shame. 
Blasted by the siren charming with corrupting gains, 
Blind to Patriotism's gleams glowing with a quenchless tlame. 
Shrouded with the pall of an eternally infamous name!! 



XV. 



Weird phantoms of its past glory flit throug-h the charnel space, 

Its viewless spirits weep for the crimes of this haunted place ! 

The sins of corruption are chanted by black demon's choir, 

Unlaureled headless bribers fuel for a nation's pyre! 

The cabinet's morgue echoes the crimes of the robber's den, 

The bribers' ashes are strewn to the four winds of heaven ! ! 

Outraged oppression will thunder its avenging ire 

And singe the frozen tongues of bribers with its quenchless fire ! I 



XVI. 



Unjust taxation is the torch whose flame fires our nation, 
Gold tyrants arc meet oblations for the State's expiation. 
Silver's crucifixion, fire brand of the nation's blaze. 
Will burn to ashes the vile dens of the gold gamblers' craze! 
Bribery, with the scepter of party fanaticism. 
Divorces Right from the people in the gold fiends' idolism. 
Mammon steals the libations of the sacrificial throng, 
The poor perish to pacify a monumental wrong. 

XVII. 

Golden-calf's glamour refracts the rays to tlic starveling's eyes. 
His vision gloats on hunger, manna from the gild ring skies!! 
Libert}''s robes were stolrn in pav tlie usurers' tax. 
To stifle her outcries htr luad lost l)y Shylock's Axe!! 
The money-makers arc crazed l)y lucre's luring strife. 
The pinioned poor hunger rather for the bread of Life. 
r.arons' l)irds nf pa'\- liide tjioir e\rics in tlie castle's tower, , 
Above the reach fir range of tln'ir lulpU-ss victim's power! 



XVIII. 

From robber's roost these harpies sweep down in the dead of night, 
Pillage piteous people with pitiless power's gripe!! 
These foul birds of evil omen perch on the beggar's door, 
Croakingtoleprous Lazarus, "Tax," "Tax," "Tax," a truceless war! 
Their tutelage ties the food Hope wafted to the pauper's floor, 
The public conscience murmurs into the cannon's rueful roar!? 
The spirit of sworded Freedom will foil the tyrant's crimes. 
Softening the clarion clangor of poverty's chilling chimes! 




XIX. 



The exile of gold tyrants preludes the knell of poverty, 

The charmed lives of tax-slaves languish into liberty. 

Belated balloting in Belial's bribery broil. 

Is paid for by the brawn and bone of the tax-payer's toil! 

Let the hungry howling hirelings forswear the guilty gold. 

Destroy the mischief machine wherein votes are bought and sold!! 

Elect senators from the people's popular acclaim, 

The Australian ballot will send patriots without stain. 



XX. 



The cultured, honest, patriotic poor, Hke the late Gov. Blair, 
As vainly seek the nation's Senate as fly in mid-air. 
The fiat of the gold-bags sways with a vile wicked rod, 
Makes senators of jumping jacks jerked by Mammon's nod; 
Mis-represents the people, reflects only empty self, 
Lost to Patriotism by the craze of pillaged pelf! 
False to truth, defiled by evil's poisoned challice, 
Bribearchs commit the unpardonable sin 'gainst Justice! 



XXL 



Piteous pauper pilfers pennies pines in a prison pen, 

The fiend who bribes meanest men should hang in a felon's den ! 

Soulless Senator Ape, with glutton's maw and comic tail, 

Outbribes his poor rival with pine logs or Bessemer rails; 

His aspirations aspersed with a stock-jobbing past. 

The antics of the saw-dust freak make idiots stand aghast! 

Should the Senate be blackened with a puffing smoke-stack, 

Propped up with the purchased guys of a bribed pack? 

XXII. 

Should the shrines to Clay and Webster within the Senate's bars, 
Be desecrated by derailed, bribe-smashed freight-cars? 
Should the Fane of Liberty, where Tyranny ever quails. 
Be stufTed with basswood shingles and rusty rotten rails? 
Gobbling, guzzling, garish gluttons, with more lucre than brains. 
Disgrace those sacred trusts purchased with gold gamblers' gains! 
The chairs of wonderful Webster and the cynosure Clay, 
Echo with the rliatterings of the aping monkey's bray!! 



XXIII. 

Read the doom of the gold gamblers branded on the wall, 
\Mth the thorns of the people's scorn lashed from Justice's hall, 
Hooted with the public wrath, shrouded with the blackest tar, 
Feathered in robes of shame, ridden on rails near and far, 
Buffeting Stygian waves on the Plutonian shore, 
From the righteous eyes of Heaven banished evermore! 
The gold ring is a dear machine against the people's aims 
Run by vile cyclops with one eye for their own grabbing gains! 

XXIV. 

The electoral college, fearful fraud, is freemen's Might, 

Elects the smaller vote against the people's rights. 

Let pure citizens vote direct for the people's free choice, 

Unheeding the seducing siren of the briber's voice. 

Tlie w^orld's wealth and weal intrusted by the King of Heaven, 

For His glory and the happiness alike of all men. 

The dark clouds of woe in the chaos of gold ring's doom 

Vanish in the rays of the sun of Silver Freedom! 

XXV. 

These priceless prizes, awards to the people forever free, 

Br\^an's name echoed in freemen's songs of victory! 

William the Conqueror cleanse the cabinet's crooks to the core. 

Blighted by the stains of corruption, pure in days of yore. 

With burning words light with quenchless patriotic fire, 

The darkened Forum with celestial wisdom to inspire! 

To capture an apostate Throne thy trophy shall it be, 

And laureate thee, with the Crown of Inuuortality ! ! 



XXVI. 

The vestal fires on the patriot's altar ever burn, 
Thy heroism blazoned on the doric marble urn. 
Image of Patriotism, throned in every clime. 
Shield of the helpless, benisoned at poverty's shrine. 
When Liberty's riven roots revive her first laurel stem, 
She will twine thy typic temples with an eternal diadem ! 
Blazon our ideal with the rythmic chimes of deathless fame, 
Sing sacred peans to magnify a refulgent name! 

XXVII. 

Golden praise of endless ages, thy deeds a priceless boon, 
Throned in the hearts of the people, idolized Tribune! 
Free speech, free silver, free exchange of the world's gains, 
Which the Creator made for all alike in His vast domains. 
Every soul singing silvers sweet refrain, 
Every heart responsive to silver's silken strains, 
Every child of Freedom owner of ten thousand dimes, 
Everv cottage clangs its bells cast in sweet silver chimes. 

XXVIII. 

The liryan State-Ship ])1(Mvs tiic wide, wide world's smiling sea, 

With the rifting prow of limitless trade, forever free! 

Silver I'Vecdoni, l)riglit lining of Ikt uneiTing keel. 

The patriotic policy insuring the public weal. 

Competitive charges, the spikes of her hurricane deck. 

Shielding her crew from the waves of the Cold Octopus wrecks! 

Vicarious Patriotism, segis of her exposed gunwale, 

Makim-- the furious forces of her foes forever fail! 



XXIX. 

Truth hath hewn out of hickory licr Heaven pointing- masts, 
Forever checking the strains of Error's withering blasts. 
Tlie loom of Justice hath woven her spotless bribe-proof sails, 
Untarnished by gold gamblers" crimes strewing the gale. 
Honor knotted the rigging of her nervy willing ropes 
To the sails speeding the argosy of her golden hopes. 
Her search-lights flash upon the stains of covert bribery. 
Her fog-alarm sounds the warning to corrupt monopoly. 

XXX. 

The compass discovers the shoal of riches to the few. 
The tiller holds the course of equality to all the crew. 
Her pumps pull up vampires of tlic basest perfidy. 
Casting out the vile leeches' food for sharks of the angry sea. 
The gold rings are blown to atoms by bombs rob'd with flames. 
Her shattering^ shells scatter millionaires' untaxed gains. 
"People's Plain Government," bright signal on her pennon fair, 
"Public office a Holy Trust," her cloud-rifting prayer. 

XXXI. 

Her bounding bows with exultant joy breast the spray's silver veil. 

Heavenly Peace is throned 'mid her bonnie snowy sails. 

Eternal Right cast her anchor in happy freemen's land, 

'Gainst the wiles of foreign gold tyrants to ever stand!! 

Her main deck is canopied with swords for freemen forever free, 

Her masts radiate the irridescent lights of Liberty!! 

Her peans, with holy censers, rise in incense gleaming fanes. 

One Father, one faith, one flag, one fame her prayers attain. 



XXXII. 

In Heaven's choirs, saints, in orbs transcending lucre's craze, 
Where cherubim and seraphim hymn their empyrean praise, 
Behold with joy the State-Ship in Silver's rays glary gay. 
Heaven's beatific host bless her sway in Freedom's fray! 
The Gold Octopus craft glides into the wild waves of misery, 
The nympholeptic corsair, scourge of the dead financial sea! 
The Ship of State runs her down on the gold-gamblers' rocky 

shore. 
Whose gold-drunk barnacles desert the wreck in passions roar! 

XXXIII. 

Her slaves winged with gold coupons fly into the surge's boom, 
Seeking the Lethe to efiface the horror of their idol's doom! 
Their hopes writhing in the urn of Fraud's pitiless surge, 
The strains of the Gold Octopus their ceaseless dirge! 
The black sea-mews, feathered with Mammon's shadowy wiles, 
Raven her ship-wrecked household gods with frontless guile! 
Bribery scuttles the hull of the gold pirates cut-throat craft, 
Corruption corrodes her dismantled quivering masts! 

XXXIV. 

Her rudder rent by tormenting taxation's howling gale, 

The All-seeing's vengeful winds strew her riven sails! 

The Silver Ship, in Freedom's robes, sways from rioring waters 

free. 
To the radient island gems of the sunny equatorial sea. 
Her gleeful sails cheer each spray of hope with Silver's ensign. 
Her propitious stars shine on waves of joy in every clime. 
At the helm splendors of Patriotism crown Bryan's victory, 
Day-Star in the grandest galaxy of Silver Liberty. 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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